I am the Vegan Ronin. I travel the world, my knives my only companions. You will only know me by my trail of tofu.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Pierogi Power!

Thanks to LittleVehgen for reminding me I haven’t eaten pierogi in at least 8 months. So sad seeing that I love them so much. So I decided to make some too!

First, I know it is a sad fact not everyone knows what pierogi are. Thankfully, Wiki has a good entry on it (and different ways to make it).

I halved her dough recipe, giving me about 20 pierogi. I boiled 2 big potatoes* (only needed one though) with half of a minced onion. I mashed them up with salt, garlic powder, and a pinch of thyme.

I do not have a rolling pin nor a cookie cutter. So using small portions of dough, I treated it like a pizza crust dough and then rolled it out with a coffee mug, and used the mug’s mouth to cut out circle and stretch them out a little more. Scoop a little potato mixture up and squeeze it into a ball and place on the dough. Wet the lip of the dough and pinch shut all the way around.

TIP: Before sealing the dough completely, give it a few pats to make sure all the air it out of it first. You can thank Alton Brown for that tip.

Fresh boiled pierogi takes only about 1 minute or so to cook (when it floats, it’s done. Overcooked piergoi will be slimy and chewy.) If you freeze your pierogi, it still only takes about 3 minutes to cook (same rules apply).

I am part Polish, so I learned to eat them the Polish way. After they are boiled, have a heated skillet with some oil ready. Place pierogi and chopped onions in at the same time. Keep on a low/med heat and allow the onions to caramelize and piergoi to turn golden (turning occasionally).

Serve hot! You can eat as it, or add some vegan sour cream, or some people even add salsa (I don’t think I could handle that.)

*Because there’s only one thing worse than instant potatoes, and that’s olives. Next in the line of grossness after instant potatoes are reheated mashed potatoes. And it’s mashed, not smashed. IMO =)